20th Cycle of Fellow Program For Visual Artists Opens September 6
Lynden, Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund, and Joy Engine to Provide Critical Support to Five Artists in 2023
The Lynden, in collaboration with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and Joy Engine (formerly Black Box Fund), announces the twentieth cycle of the prestigious Mary L. Nohl Fellowship Program for Individual Visual Artists. The program, funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund and Joy Engine, provides unrestricted funds for artists to create new work or complete work in progress.
The Nohl Fellowship is one of the most generous regional fellowships for individual artists. Increased support has enabled Lynden to make significant changes to the program: increasing the size of awards for both the Nohl Fellowship and the Suitcase Export Fund; adding studio visits for the Emerging finalists during the jurying process; formalizing some of the professional development opportunities that come with the fellowship; and extending the fellowship period to provide artists with more time to develop their work.
Five fellowships will be awarded in 2023: two for Established Artists ($35,000 each) and three for Emerging Artists ($15,000 each). Each artist will also receive a $5,000 professional development/production budget. The fellowship period will begin in January 2023 when the new fellows are announced and will conclude in June 2024 with an exhibition at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University. The eighteen-month fellowship period will include professional development opportunities such as studio visits from curators and artists outside the area and occasional public programs. The exhibition, and the Fellowship program, will be documented in a catalogue that includes a critical essay on each artist’s work. The catalogue will be distributed locally, regionally, and nationally.
The Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship program also includes a Suitcase Export Fund for exporting work by local artists beyond the four-county area. The fund is currently open, and the electronic application and guidelines are available at https://www.
The Nohl Fellowship program is open to practicing artists residing in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. One hundred and sixteen fellowships have been awarded since the program began in 2003. The fellowships encourage visual artists who are making, or will make, significant contributions to their fields to stay in Greater Milwaukee; to evolve as artistic practitioners; and to contribute to our community through the creation of art. We define art broadly. As Daniel Minter, an artist-in-residence at Lynden, observes, art can be a conduit for culture, a way to show people how to solve everyday problems, to create navigation systems to “an alternative understanding about the world,” and to “recognize and access ancestral resources for individual and collective struggle.” Black, Indigenous, and other artists of color, and those representing diverse cultural perspectives, are strongly urged to apply.
Applications and guidelines for the twentieth cycle of the fellowship program will be available on the web at https://www.
A virtual workshop and three virtual Q&A sessions will be offered to help applicants better understand the application, the jurying process, and the changes to the program. These programs are free and open to new applicants as well as those who have applied in the past. If you are unable to attend these sessions on Zoom, they will be recorded and posted here: https://www.
Polly Morris, executive director of the Lynden Sculpture Garden, who administers the fellowship program, will be joined by current Nohl Fellows Valaria Tatera and John W. Balsley for the informal, online workshop:
• Thursday, September 8, 2022, 6-7:30 pm.
Morris will also offer three virtual Q&A sessions:
• Friday, September 16, 2022, 12 noon-1 pm.
• Saturday, September 24, 2022, 10-11 am.
• Thursday, September 29, 2022, 6:30-7:30 pm.
The workshop and information sessions are free, but you must register in advance. Register for the workshop and Q&A session here: https://www.
Artist Mary L. Nohl of Fox Point, Wisconsin, died in December 2001 at the age of 87. She left a $9.6 million bequest to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Her fund supports local visual arts and education programs, keeping her passion for the visual arts alive in the community.
The five fellows selected in the 2022 cycle of the competition—Valaria Tatera and Jason S. Yi in the Established Artist category; and Emerging Artists John W. Balsley, Inna Dmitrieva, and Molly Hassler–will open an exhibition of their work at the Haggerty Museum of Art in June 2023.
The Greater Milwaukee Foundation is Wisconsin’s largest community foundation and was among the first established in the world. For more than a century, the Foundation has been at the heart of the civic community, helping donors achieve the greatest philanthropic impact, elevating the work of changemakers across neighborhoods, and bringing people and organizations together to help our region thrive. Racial equity is the Foundation’s North Star, guiding its investments and strategies for social and economic change. Leveraging generations of community knowledge, cross-sector partnerships and more than $1 billion in financial assets, the Foundation is committed to reimagining philanthropy, recentering communities and remaking systems to transform our region into a Milwaukee for all.
Joy Engine, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 2019. Joy Engine uses public art as an “engine” to break barriers, spark meaningful human connections, and create equitable access and belonging within Milwaukee’s arts & culture community. Their goal is to activate creative community spaces through art.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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